> They are my peers and partners who are equally as "major players" as anyone else.

I love this. The best teams I've been a part of are those that had a mutual respect for everyone else's work. I was an engineer on those teams, and thank god for the product manager, tech lead, design work, ux researchers, etc. Things work so much better when there's a real culture of "we're all in this together, and we all have important roles to play".